Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 103102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Should I check for a fever?”
“No,” I say. “Maybe. But I…I don’t know. I don’t want to think. Is that okay?” I can’t believe how true it feels. I don’t want to think. Of all the people in the world, I’m the last one who can stop thinking. But I don’t care. I feel it.
He sees me in a way other people don’t, and I love it. I feel myself with him in a way I don’t with other people.
Even if I don’t understand that, either.
“I don’t want to think, either.” He cuts another slice of Eggs Benedict. “But I have to feed you before I do anything else.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I do,” he says. “I like taking care of you.”
Which is scary. I don’t let anyone take care of me. Because what if they leave and I don’t know how to take care of myself anymore? Not practically and not emotionally.
“You don’t let your guard down easily.”
“You, either.”
He raises a brow.
“You’re like your grandma. You’re good at making a no sound like a yes.” I take a bite. Let the rich, creamy sauce dissolve on my tongue. “Asking me a personal question to keep me from following up on yours.”
“I am, aren’t I?”
He is, but I understand that. I understand how hard it is to talk about these things. “You don’t have to talk about your mom,” I say.
“I know.” He takes another bite. He fixes his tea. He sips.
For a few minutes, we stay there, focusing on breakfast, enjoying the warmth of the morning, the company.
Then he starts. “She’s a drug addict. There are nicer ways to say it, but they all get at the same thing. She chooses heroin over everything else.”
For a moment, his expression steels. He breathes through it, takes another sip, eats another bite.
Then he continues, “Grandma kicked her out when she was nineteen. It was her third warning. ‘If you bring that into my house again, you’re not welcome here.’ That was it. Mom came to her for money a few times, but she was too proud to ask for other help. Even when she got clean.”
“Where were you in all that?” I ask.
“She was pregnant when she left.” He relays the information the way I would: as facts. This is the timeline. This is what everyone claimed happened. No editorializing. No feelings of his own. “She swore to Grandma she wasn’t using, that she was only holding for her boyfriend, but Grandma didn’t believe her.”
“Do you?” It’s not like me to pry this way, but I want to know. Not for the sake of holding onto the information. Because I want to know where he hurts and help him guard the wounds.
“I don’t know. I think she tried. I think she wanted to be a good mom. There’s no history of withdrawal in my medical records. That happens, sometimes, when the mother is using opiates during her pregnancy. The fetus develops a dependence.” His voice softens. His eyes get hazy, the way they do when he’s working on a drawing, like he’s off somewhere else in his head. “That doesn’t happen to everyone. And I don’t remember when she first started using. Or maybe she always was.”
That’s hard. That’s impossibly hard. I want to say something, comfort him, but I don’t know how. I’m not good at this.
“No. I remember. One day, I came home from school, third grade, I think, and something was different. She was different. I didn’t know why but I knew she was off,” he says. “She got hazy. She stopped caring about things like making dinner or getting places on time or paying bills. She had a boyfriend who helped her with money. He’d hand me the checks and say, ‘Thanks for taking care of your mama, little guy.’”
“How old were you?”
“Eight or nine.”
“Damn.”
He laughs. “Yeah. Damn.” He takes a long sip of tea and drifts back to that hazy, faraway place. “He was decent to her. He wasn’t decent to his family—he was married with kids—but he was decent to her.”
“You knew he was married?”
“He didn’t take off his ring. He took her on dates sometimes. Or he took her to the bedroom. I wasn’t old enough to realize the nature of their arrangement.”
“Sex for money?”
“A sugar daddy kind of thing. He was a wealthy guy. He kept us in a decent place. Until he ended things, we lived a pretty good life.”
“How did you know he had a family?”
“He didn’t hide it,” he says. “He showed me pictures of his kids. When I got older and moved in with Grandma, I saw him with his family once, at a soccer game. He lived here. He grew up here, with my mom.”
“That close?” I ask.
He nods.
I give him a chance to catch his breath. I try to find something wise to say in my tea. There’s nothing, so I offer what I have. “I’m sorry.”